The increasing manufacturing cost of integrated circuits (ICs) has bolstered a horizontal semiconductor business model in which designing and manufacturing are performed by different companies. With this type of horizontal business model, digital rights management (DRM) becomes a challenging problem because a designer gives a manufacturer full access to design files, netlists, and test vectors, but then has little control over the actual manufacturing of the ICs based on the design. This lack of control may create a possibility of piracy because fabrication facilities (fabs) used by many designers of electronic hardware are oftentimes untrustworthy and remotely located from the designer. Additionally, the fabs often have the resources and access to the most advanced tools and techniques to facilitate the piracy of the state-of-the-art designs.
Protection of IC designs is important because ICs are widely used in almost all electronic devices. It is estimated that the most commonly pirated electronics are computer hardware, computer peripherals, and embedded systems. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a method that provides a mechanism for protection against the unauthorized use and piracy of integrated circuits and systems.